Deploy the cardinal helm chart on Rancher

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To deploy a Helm chart on Rancher using Pulumi, we would need the Pulumi Rancher 2 provider, which offers resources for managing Rancher resources such as clusters, applications, and workloads. Unfortunately, there's no direct Pulumi resource for deploying a Helm chart on Rancher; however, you can use a combination of the Rancher 2 provider and custom scripting to accomplish this task.

Here's how you can achieve it:

Make sure you have a Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher and you are able to access it.
You will need to set up the appropriate configuration to authenticate with the Rancher server API.
Use the CatalogV2 resource type to add the repository if it's not already available in Rancher.
Write a script that launches kubectl or helm commands through the Rancher CLI or API to deploy the Cardinal Helm chart to your cluster.

Below is a basic program showing how you could use Pulumi to set up the catalog source and a script to deploy a Helm chart on Rancher. You would need to replace placeholders like "<RANCHER_API_TOKEN>", "Cluster ID", and the chart details with your specific details.

import * as rancher2 from "@pulumi/rancher2";

// Add a catalog to Rancher (if it's not already present).
const catalog = new rancher2.CatalogV2("cardinal-catalog", {
    // The cluster where the catalog should be added.
    clusterId: "Cluster ID", // Replace with your Rancher cluster ID
    // Specify the GIT repository where the charts are located.
    url: "https://git-repo-url-for-cardinal-charts.git", // Replace with the actual cardinal chart repository URL
    gitRepo: "https://git-repo-url-for-cardinal-charts.git", // Same as url
    gitBranch: "main", // The default branch that Rancher should track
});

// Considering the lack of direct Pulumi support for deploying Helm charts via Rancher,
// you would need a custom script or a manual step to deploy Cardinal Helm chart using `helm` or `kubectl`.
// This could be a NodeJS child process in Pulumi to execute shell commands or an external script that is run afterwards.
//
// The following code example is assuming that you've already configured kubectl to point to the appropriate
// Kubernetes cluster managed by Rancher.
//
// For example:
// ```
// helm install cardinal cardinal-chart-repo/cardinal --version <chartVersion> --namespace <targetNamespace>
// ```
//
// This code block does not represent runnable Pulumi code but indicates where you need to run your deployment script
// or command. You would replace `<chartVersion>`, `<targetNamespace>`, and other placeholders with actual values
// that pertain to your Helm chart deployment.

// Outputs - Exporting values that might be helpful for the next steps (like CI/CD, manual commands, etc.)
export const catalogName = catalog.name;

// Don't forget to run `pulumi up` to apply this Pulumi program.

This script sets up the catalog source to point to the repository containing the Cardinal Helm charts. You must ensure the specified url and gitBranch match the Helm chart repository you are using.

After applying this Pulumi code, which can be done either through the Pulumi CLI or CI/CD integration, you would then follow up with a helm or kubectl command to deploy the actual chart onto your Rancher-managed cluster. This would typically be done as part of your deployment pipeline or manually if you are managing deployments that way.

Please replace placeholders in the script with actual values before running it, and ensure that you have helm installed and configured for use with your Kubernetes cluster. Also, ensure you have the necessary permissions to interact with the Rancher API and the Kubernetes cluster.